stitches {2012}

It only seems like a blink since the trade show last year, and here we are again, starting over with another round of vibrant, brand-new products to kick off 2012.

Trade shows are awesome, you get to see all the craft suppliers in one place releasing all their newest goodies. It's a good way of judging what is going to be big this year, and my money is on fabric! Lots of our suppliers have added fabric to match their paper, brads, buttons and more. We adore! No consistency of design style could be seen, it was a variety of bright-funky-crisp, some muted-dusky-vintage, but I love fabric however it comes! Quilting is where I started way back pre-kids - I always used to sew my own clothes thru high school and uni.... so mixing fabric with paper-crafting is right up my street! Go grab yourself a cheap sewing machine and let's do this! It's much easier than you might expect. And straight lines are a big no, no. So no expectations for competency at all in this lark! Ironic that Lin and I are coincidentally on a fabric kick for this June's ArtsyCrafts, but what brilliant timing as there are so many cool things we can incorporate into our June classes. Lucky for us and you!

This is our huge acrylic topped cardboard desk, with recent art samples loitering underneath. Love this desk!

Here is how our booth/stand looked the last few days. We generally cause a bit of a stir with our red cardboard creation. Its a product specifically designed for trade shows, we have been using it for several years now, you cna paint it paper it...whatever you wish. Its cheap, portable and looks so much better than racks! As it was raining heavily when we arrived, we kind of thought it might turn to mush - but I found some muslin and thin plastic on the floor, and we made it inside with no dramas!

New of course are the additional 24 paints which now have a fancy schmancy double height acrylic display rack - very POSH, and shows off all the colours perfectly! Light, medium, dark and super-dark shades in 10 paint families. Plus 4 glazes, black, white, gold, silver.

We also have another 4 stamps coming from Lynne Perrella, they won't be shipping for at least a month, but they will be closely followed by another 4!!! Even though we go to a trade show, we continue to add new things to our lines throughout the year, and we still have more new spring releases to come!! Schtumm for now though.

We have 9 new Hot Picks. Can you believe it was April 2010 that we launched these designs. 2 years on and we still release a design a month, although at times like this when we release a batch in advance we get ahead of ourselves. They are so popular - Mr PA does a grand job. I adore the new fishy themed ones. And the flowers are always useful for so many situations. The large bottles will be a fabulous element to add to any project. And with the London Olympics site only being a 12 minute train ride from PA HQ, we have added some plates with London elements to the collection too.

We also have 10 Vintage (Ink and the Dog) collection stamps available. If you haven't caught up with the update, we launched PaperArtsy with Ink and the Dog in 2003. This was pre-distress ink days! Can you imagine!! We are now cherry picking our favourite images from this collection, making them larger, as they were originally designed for ATC art, and re-formatting them onto A5 sheets. Once this process is complete, the small A6 plates will be discontinued. Our iconic Ink and the Dog line still has huge part to play in the enduring vintage trend, and with over 130 plates in the collection, it really is time to prune it back to a more manageable size for retailers with the most desirable images on one plate.

Each day of the show I taught to sold out classes of retailers. They made a fresco paint technique sampler to put on the wall in their shop next to their paint rack- they seemed thrilled with that idea and 6 painty tags in 45 mins was kicking some serious paint butt along the way!! We got finished 2 of the 3 days, so the girls (and boys) did good!! They did squirm when I said "no cleaning allowed" for 45 mins tho!! Mwahahaha ha ha.

So there you have it, the trade show is over, and we are shipping out orders from today!! Speedy huh! If you are a retailer and didn't make it to the show, all our show offers are online now in the wholesale website and available until March 11th. Contact me for details if you need more info. Sales@paperartsy.co.uk or phone 01277 212911

Lastly a big thanks to Lin who came and helped us write orders for the 3 days of the show. Her retail advise to other shops on our stand was invaluable for them and us, and she was a whizz with Mark's amazing iPad ordering app that impressed many. We so totes tek-o-noj-i-cal us Essex folk!! Lots of well jell exhibitors! LOL

For those of you wondering when all the new stuff will be on our retail site-I'm guessing 3 weeks. In the meantime, go to your local stamp store - we start shipping today!